[OT?] GPL v3 FUD, was For Approval: MLL (minimal library license)

[Chris Travers]

On Nov 14, 2007 10:56 AM, Matthew Flaschen <matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu> wrote:
> Chris Travers wrote:
>
> > 1)  Inadvertent granting of patent license through internal
> > distribution of software (i.e. if I work for company X and download a
> > copy of the GCC, put it on a file share so other team members can use
> > it, Company X may just have granted patent licenses for any patents
> > that are covered in the GCC to all GCC users as my action seems to
> > match the criteria for conveyance).
>
> Internal distribution and modification (which may or may not actually be
> distribution under copyright law) is not conveyance.  Conveyance is a
> subset of propagation, and propagation expressly excludes "modifying a
> private copy."  A copy private to a company (obviously assuming this
> company is real, rather than a meaningless shell) is still a private copy.

The key question is if and when an employee becomes a party to the
conveyance.  This may not be 100% clear.  However, as has been pointed
out to me, this is void because implied patent licenses do not count.

However, after off-line discussion with others, I have concluded that
the ambiguity is a lot less than it is with the GPL2 so this should
not really  be a strike against the GPL v3.

>
> Moreover, GPLv3 only requires that "contributor[s] grants you a
> non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under the
> contributor's essential patent claims".  If you only convey (again,
> though, your example is not conveyance) without modifying, you are not a
> contributor.

Section 11, paragraph 6 is a little different and was the paragraph I
was worried about.  It covers conveying when you provide or rely on a
patent license.  Since implied patent licenses don't count (as defined
elsewhere), it would be difficult for a business to accidently step
over that line.

Hence I am now satisfied that this is a non-issue.  Argument retracted :-)

> > 2)  Applicability of 7(2) permissions removal requirements to BSDL
> > files included verbatim.  The SFLC seems to think that this issue can
> > safely be ignored (i.e. pretend that the BSDL gives you this right but
> > just don't exercise it).  Answers like that leave me unwilling to
> > assume that the licenses can be safely used together because
> > theoretical problems have a nasty way of surfacing as real problems in
> > unforeseen circumstances.
>
> That document was not (at least not deliberately) an answer to your
> question/concern.  It was written as a response to a different issue.

More likely the concern hadn't been raised to the authors of the paper.

This being said, I believe that license compatibility with the BSDL,
MITL, etc. licenses was a design goal of the GPL v3.  Hence if one is
not allowed to just change the effective license on a verbatim copy
(which I don;t believe you can), the GPL3 would need to be interpreted
such that these sort of licenses were outside the scope of what
section 7, paragraph 2 could reach.  I certainly hope we will see such
clarifications in the future.
>
> >> Strangely, you fail to express the same concerns about longer and
> >> radically more complex licenses.
> >>
> > Such as?  Are any such licenses on-topic here?

> Other complex approved licenses include Reciprocal Public License and
> Adaptive Public License, but I don't see a need to rehash them either.

I have not found those licenses to be worth my time to conclusively
review. Since most of my work is under the GPL v2, it is worth my time
to review the GPL v3 pretty thoroughly.

As for the consensus that the parent topic is closed, let us agree to
drop the conversation.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers